Processing Work Orders

This chapter provides an overview of work order processing and discusses how to:

• Find work orders.

• Approve work orders.

• Revise work orders.

• Print work orders.

• Process work order charges.

Understanding Work Order Processing

You can review existing work orders and update work order information as necessary. For example, as the work progresses, you can:

• Approve a work order and allow work to begin.

• Update the life cycle information for the work order to indicate the progress of the work.

  For example, you can indicate that parts have been ordered.

• Track the costs that are associated with the work order, such as parts and labor costs.

The life cycle of a work order consists of the steps or statuses through which a work order must pass, indicating the progress of the work. For example, the life cycle of a work order can include these statuses:

• Request for work to be performed.

• Approval for work to proceed.

• Waiting for materials.

• Work in progress.

• Work complete.

• Closed.

After you create work orders, you can perform a variety of tasks to manage the work orders as they move through the work order life cycle. For example, you can:

• Search for specific work orders or groups of work orders.

• Revise information, such as start date, priority, status, and so on, as work orders move through the life cycle and demands on the maintenance organization change.

• Review information about the parts lists for work orders.

• Print copies of work orders for use by maintenance people.

• Change the status of a work order to complete, indicating that the maintenance tasks have been performed.

Finding Work Orders

This section provides an overview of how to find work orders, lists prerequisites, and lists the forms used to located work orders.

Understanding How to Find Work Orders

Within a typical organization, hundreds of work orders might await processing. You can use specific search criteria in the Scheduling Workbench program (P48201) to limit the search for particular work orders. You use the information that you know about specific work orders to narrow the search. For example, you can locate all work orders that share the same criteria, such as:

• A job or business unit.

• The person who originates the work orders.

• The person who manages or supervises the work to be performed.

• User-defined information that is associated with the work orders, such as category codes and work order types.

• Dates that are associated with the work orders, such as start date and planned completion date.

You can use any combination of search criteria to locate work orders with similar characteristics. For example, you can locate all work orders for a business unit that are assigned to a particular supervisor. You can also locate all maintenance work orders that are scheduled to start on a particular date. The more information that you enter, the more you narrow the search to a specific work order or group of work orders.

After you locate a work order, you can use the Scheduling Workbench program to access a variety of forms and complete multiple tasks with a specific work order. For example, after you locate a work order, you can access the form for approving work orders directly from the Scheduling Workbench, so that you do not have to access additional menus.

Prerequisites to Finding Work Orders

You must have the Capital Asset Management system in addition to the Work Orders system to access these programs from the Scheduling Workbench program (P48201):

• Work With Unscheduled Maintenance (P13UM).

• Work With Equipment Work Orders (P13220).

• Capacity Message Summary (P3301).

• PM Backlog (P12071).

• Work Order Parts Detail (P17730).

• Work Order Labor Detail (P17732).

• Work Order Inventory Issues (P31113).

You must have the Procurement system to access the Purchase Orders program (P4310).

Form Used to Locate Work Orders

Approving Work Orders

This section provides an overview of work order approval, lists prerequisites, and discusses how to review work order history.

Understanding Work Order Approval

You can review, approve, or reject work orders. After a work order is created, the system sends an electronic message to notify the person who is responsible for reviewing and approving the work order. When you approve a work order, the system then sends an electronic mail message to the next person on the work order approval route. If you reject a work order, the system sends an electronic mail message to the originator of the work order. You can use the Scheduling Workbench program (P48201) to review these messages.

You can also place a work order on hold if you want to approve or reject the work order at a later time. The system does not send any messages when you place a work order on hold.

During the approval process, the system generates an audit record for approvals and rejections. If you must reject a work order after initially approving it, the system creates an audit record for the rejection and stores the original approval record for historical purposes.

You can use the Scheduling Workbench program (P48201) to review and approve work orders. You can also directly access these work orders from the Employee Queue Manager program (P012503) on the Workflow Management menu (G02).

Prerequisites for Work Order Approval

Before you approve work orders:

• Set up user profiles for all people who are responsible for approving work orders.

• Verify that all people who are responsible for approving work orders are included in the work order approval routing.

Forms Used to Approve Work Orders

Reviewing Work Order History

Access the WO Approval Audit form.

Use the Scheduling Workbench to monitor the status and progress of work orders. You can review the current approval status of any work order in the system. When you enter a work order number in the Scheduling Workbench program (P48201), the Process Task Monitor form displays:

• The person who approved or reviewed the work order.

• The date on which the work order was approved or reviewed.

• The status of the work order, such as approved or in process.

You can also review any notes about the work order.

Revising Work Orders

This section provides an overview of work order revision and discusses how to revise work orders.

Understanding Work Order Revision

You can revise work orders as they move through the work order life cycle. The life cycle of a work order consists of the steps or statuses through which a work order must pass, indicating the progress of the work.

You can revise a work order as information changes or new information becomes available. You can revise any information except the work order number. If you use work order approvals, you might not be able to change some life cycle statuses, depending on how the system is set up. Some of the information that you might revise includes:

• Life cycle statuses.

• Planned start and completion dates.

• Percentage of work completed.

• Estimated hours to complete the work.

For example, you can change the start date of work orders if you do not have the labor resources or parts that you need to complete the work.

You can use search criteria to narrow the search to the specific work orders that you want to revise. This narrowed search is especially useful when you need to revise the information in a single field for a group of related work orders.

Form Used to Revise Work Orders

Revising Work Orders

Access the Enter Work Orders form.

Make any necessary revisions to the work order information. To update life cycle information, complete the W.O. Status field on the General tab and click OK.

Printing Work Orders

This section discusses how to print a single work order.

Forms Used to Print Work Orders

Printing a Single Work Order

Access the Work With Work Orders form.

Select the work order that you want to print, and then select Print WO from the Row menu. You can print a single work order when you need a copy of a work order. For example, shop personnel might need to print a copy of a work order for each piece of equipment that they service.

If you already know the work order number, you can quickly print the work order from the Scheduling Workbench program (P48201). You use processing options to specify which version of the Work Order Print program (R17714) or the Work Order Print program for Capital Asset Management (R48415) that the system uses to print the order.

Processing Work Order Charges

This section provides an overview of work order charges, lists prerequisites, and discusses how to:

• Add charges to work orders.

• Review charges by job or business unit.

• Review charges by work order.

• Set processing options for Work Order Cost (P48211).

Understanding Work Order Charges

This section discusses:

• Work order charges.

• Cross-system functionality.

• Speed code entry.

Work Order Charges

You can charge costs to work orders by using any JD Edwards EnterpriseOne system that creates general ledger transaction records with a subledger type of W. For example, for a particular work order, you can use the Accounts Payable system to charge for travel time and expenses, the Inventory Management system to charge for material costs, and the Payroll or Time and Labor systems to charge for employee time.

You enter charges to a work order through a subledger. The subledger stores information in the Account Ledger table (F0911) and the Account Balances table (F0902). You can access the work order information in these tables for project management and cost accounting purposes.

For example, using subledger accounting, you can:

• Review summaries of work order charges by job or business unit.

• Maintain and track costs online from the Work Orders system.

• Review posted and unposted cost transactions for individual work orders.

Cross-System Functionality

You can add charges to a work order using any JD Edwards EnterpriseOne system that creates general ledger transaction records with subledgers. Guidelines include:

Speed Code Entry

You can save time and reduce the possibility of data entry error by using speed codes when you add charges to work orders. Speed codes are a quick way of entering an account number that is already in the system so that you do not have to enter the information again. When you use speed code entry, the system:

• Updates the account number with the business unit and the cost code (if available) from the work order.

• Updates the Subledger field with the work order number.

• Updates the Type field with a W (work order).

The code that you enter in the Account Number field for speed code entry depends on the system that you use to add charges to work orders, as follows:

Reviewing Charges by Work Order

You can review detailed charges for a work order. For example, for any charge for a work order, you can review this information:

• Description of the transaction.

• Account number that was charged.

• Units that are charged, such as hours.

• Amount of the transaction.

• Batch number and the date.

• Person responsible for the transaction.

• Document number and document type.

• Inventory item number or description.

When you access the cost detail information for a work order, the system displays all general ledger transaction records for the work order. You can view the costs within a range of dates or by a ledger type. If you do not limit the search criteria, the system displays all of the costs that are charged to the work order.

Note. In the general ledger, the system uses subledger accounting to handle cost accounting for work orders. The work order number is the subledger number, and the subledger type is always W (work order).

See Also

Working With Inventory Transactions

Processing Accounts Payable Vouchers

Forms Used to Work with Charges to Work Orders

Adding Charges to Work Orders

Access the Speed Voucher Entry form.

Enter the information for the accounts payable voucher. You can add charges to a work order whenever you issue parts to the work order. You can also add employee and equipment time to a work order. When you add charges to a work order, the system creates journal entries in the Account Ledger table (F0911). You can add work order charges to any valid account in the Account Master table (F0901).

You can add charges only to open work orders. You can identify a closed work order by the code in the Subledger Inactive field on the Enter Work Orders form. Any value in this field indicates that the work order is closed.

Reviewing Charges by Job or Business Unit

Access the Work Order Cost by Job form.

To review detailed transaction information for a work order, select a record in the detail area, and then select Work Order Cost from the Row menu. To help control costs and increase productivity, you can review work order costs that are charged to a particular job or business unit. You can review a summary of these costs, or you can review the charges that are within a specific date range or ledger type. If you do not limit the search criteria, the system displays all work orders within the job or business unit, along with the estimated hours, actual hours, and costs for each work order.

Reviewing Charges by Work Order

Access the Work With Work Order Cost form.

After you complete the fields, and click Find, the system displays details about each work order transaction.

Setting Processing Options for Work Order Cost (P48211)

These processing options supply default values for the Work Order Cost program.

Defaults

This processing option controls the ledger type that the system uses for selecting records from the Account Ledger table (F0911).

Versions

These processing options specify which version the system uses when it calls any of these programs.